Use Your Phone To Find Your Keys and Vice Versa

I have a key fob or “clicker” as most people call them, that helps me find my car in a parking lot by beeping the horn but I’ve often wished it were the other way around. Although I do rely on that fob from time to time to find my car, I’m more likely to misplace my keys than my car.

It usually happens at home. The good news is that I’m usually pretty sure they’re around somewhere, but the bad news is that I’m always tearing around the house in a panic until I find them. I also occasionally misplace my wallet and my phone.

When the phone is missing I usually just call it which works as long as the ringer is on but I often have it on vibrate so everyone in the house is instructed to be very quiet while we try hear the buzzing sound.

I’ll have to wait awhile for a solution for my wallet, but now there’s a product to help find keys and phones (Android, Blackberry and soon iPhone) with a single click.

It’s called Cobra Tag, a $59.95 sensor that’s about the same size as most key fobs that you attach to your keychain. The Tag comes to life with an app from Phone Halo, a Santa Barbara company that developed the software behind the product.

The phone and the fob talk with each other via Bluetooth – the same radio technology that’s used to connect phones to wireless headsets or speakers. It takes only seconds to “pair” the phone and the fob and a couple of minutes to download and install the app. Once that’s done, if your keys are missing you launch the app, touch the “Start Ringing Device” icon and the device starts to chirp. Bluetooth has a range of about 100 feet but if your phone and the Cobra are separated by that distance, the Tag takes a GPS fix on its location and sends that to the phone.

It also works the other way. If you can’t find your paired phone or tablet, just press the button on the Cobra Tag key fob and the phone starts to beep. And, if your phone and keys get separated by more than about 100 feet, you hear a beep and can locate the keys via GPS with a map and the approximate address where you left them.

The app also works with many Bluetooth headsets. If you misplace your headset it will cause it to beep. The app is free and you don’t need a Cobra Tag to track your Bluetooth headset.

You charge the Cobra Tag by plugging it into a USB port of a computer or a USB charger. The battery, according to the company, lasts about 10 days.

The tag is too big for a wallet but smaller products for wallets and other items are coming according to Phone Halo chief technology officer Chris Herbert. The new generation of tags will take advantage of “Bluetooth low energy,” a feature in Bluetooth 4.0 that enable devices to consume far less power which enable them to have much smaller batteries. This technology is already compatible with the iPhone 4s and some other smart phones, tablets and PCs.

There are other wireless key finders on the market including one called Wireless Key Finder and another called Click ‘n Dig, but these are one-way devices that don’t work with or find smart phones or any other devices. Also, you need to have the transmitter with you which is true with Cobra Tag but most people carry their phones with them all the time so you should be in good shape as long as you don’t lose your phone and keys at the same time (which, I’m afraid to admit, I have).